School guards get a lesson from students

High schoolers lend perspective to training

It's customary for Chicago school security officers to tell students what to do. But they recently switched roles, taking advice from the teenagers they usually boss around.

For the first time, five city high school teens offered the student perspective during the annual back-to-school training for the system's 1,400 full-time security personnel.

"Well, the students are our biggest customer base," said Andres Durbak, director of safety and security for the Chicago Public Schools, on why he agreed to the students' unusual suggestion to join the training. The teens are among 20 who serve as student advisers to schools chief Arne Duncan through the Youth Innovation Fund, sponsored by the Mikva Challenge.

As the high school students prepared to take the stage at the first session for South Side officers at Simeon Career Academy last week, Durbak smiled and said, "I don't know what to expect, but life is an adventure, right?"

The lights dimmed, and the student actors--clad in identical "Democracy is a Verb" T-shirts--transported the guards into the chaotic world of the city's large high schools. There, hundreds of students flood the hallways to change classes as security officers with walkie-talkies try to keep order.

Gaining entry into one of these Chicago high schools is much like trying to board an airplane. Identification badges are flashed, metal detectors look for guns and knives and, at 75 Chicago campuses, X-ray machines like the ones that screen carry-on luggage scan student backpacks and purses.

But Chyna Bowen, 17, a senior at Brooks College Prep High School, and Derell Bonner, 16, a junior at Prosser High, showed that different standards apply to different students.

As she entered their make-believe high school, Bowen smiled at Bonner, who was playing the security guard, while she explained that she forgot her student ID. Bonner waved her in anyway.

A few minutes later, Tamara Render, 17, a senior at Chicago Vocational High School, got a different reaction when she said she forgot her badge in her locker.

Bonner, the student playing the security guard, screamed at her.

"That is very true," whispered real security officer Bertha Navarro from her front-row seat. "Not all the kids are treated the same, and it's not right."

Navarro said she sent a pretty student to the office at Kennedy High School for showing a bit too much flesh and "the administrator just let her go." But when she sent an overweight girl to the office for the same reason, "the girl got a three-day detention," Navarro said.

Lesson one: Apply the rules evenly to all students whether they are star athletes, suspected gangbangers or timid freshmen.

"When there's inconsistency, it causes us not to take the security staff seriously," explained Kennedy High School senior Jeanine Makkawi, 17, to the audience. "It makes us less likely to follow the rules."

Durbak reinforced the message: "You are addressing what people do; not what people are."

In another skit, Justin Merrick, 18, a senior at Clemente High School, and Render tackled the issue of sexual harassment. The issue is relevant in a district where some school security officers have been accused of sexual liaisons with teens.

Merrick, channeling a slick "player" masquerading as a security officer, offered to trade Render a hall pass for her phone number. A few minutes later, another guard challenges the young woman's presence in the hall without a pass and Merrick tells him to leave her alone, saying, "It's cool."

Should the guard report the slick guard who hit on the student? When a real security officer suggests the errant guard only be watched unless he does it again, it garners a firm reaction from a colleague.

"Turn him in. That could be your daughter the man is harassing," said security officer William Hubbard, who was in the audience.

A skit on how to handle a disruptive student who turned over a desk because he didn't want to solve a math problem garnered some differences in opinion. The students suggested security should remain calm and try to find out what was bothering the student. In this case, it was because the young man felt the teacher was trying to embarrass himbefore his peers.

"We wear so many hats. When you greet the kids in the morning, you have to pick up on their different attitudes to know what might be up that day. Most of our kids have a hard life. Just getting to school in the first place is a challenge," Wade said.

A number of officers, including Lewis Cass Jr., volunteered to help the students with future trainings so that the adult viewpoint is incorporated.

"We're spending a lot of our time with young people who are acting out," Cass said. "And most of them aren't nearly as intelligent or conscientious as these children."

He said officers are always juggling. They remove a disruptive student from a classroom while they monitor their radios.

"And at the same time, you're keeping an eye on a potential fight in the hallway. We don't always have the time to handle things the way they are suggesting," Cass said.

After the session, officers praised the students for having the guts to take a chance and share their views.

"We got people talking, even if some of them were angry," said Hillary Reser, a Youth Innovation Fund adviser who shepherded the project.